


Coming to Terms

by Sivvus



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, The Immortals - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friendship, Future, Intervention, Love, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parenthood, Past, Past Relationship(s), Peace, Relationship(s), Relax - Freeform, Romance, Sex, Teaching, Time - Freeform, War, Wooing, fight, husband-wife relationship, kidnap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sivvus/pseuds/Sivvus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you survive peace time? There's family, work and, honestly, "peace" is entirely the wrong word when you're talking about raising three children. How can you come to terms with your life, or plan your future, when everyone wants to forget your past? This is a fic about learning how to fall in love all over again. D/N, set after POTS. Sex/dark content, so a mature label.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Daine had been teaching the rider recruits for half of her life. It was unusual for them to ask her any questions which she could not answer. That was why, when she asked Numair for his advice, her husband knew there was a serious problem.

Daine tried to explain.

For a few years after the war all of the new recruits already had their share of scars, or they had close friends or family who had suffered at the hands of immortals or Scanrans. They knew what it was like to live in a land where death stalked unchecked through every home, and they understood that safety meant knowing how to fight. It was just how their lives had always been, and as recruits they took their training very seriously.

But now... these recruits were different.

They had been children when the war was at its worst. Their parents would have wanted them to sleep soundly, because even when the world was full of enemies protecting children from the horrors of their own imaginations was essential. And so these children were comforted with stories about the great heroes of the war. They had heard about the men and women who were fighting to protect them. They had heard about the Lady Knights – the Lioness, with her fiery temper, and the Mindelan knight who had so fiercely protected Haven from the killing machines. They had heard about the Giant Killer, the Black Mage, the Wildmage and their king, who wielded the Dominion Jewel.

They had heard all of these stories, and then they had come to the capital city with their heads full of dreams. You could see them, wandering around with wide eyes and staring at everyone whose eyes held the tell of battle, wondering if they were... if they might possibly be...

The worst ones were sent home quickly enough, but even the ones who weren't here for the stories still had an odd idea of what they were really fighting for. War, to them, was something which brought glory, or respect, or honour.

"To them it makes sense," Daine finished, and sighed. "But it doesn't to me. I don't know how to explain to them that... that for most of the war I felt like I was clinging on by my fingertips, desperately hoping my friends were still alive. How can I tell them that? They won't believe it. They won't understand it."

Numair nodded. It was something his own students had also begun to struggle with, too. Unlike his wife he had found a way around it, but up until now he had evaded explaining what he had done to suddenly fill his students' minds with bitter awareness.

He wasn't particularly proud of the trick, but it was needful. When Daine asked if he would teach the riders the next morning, he thought for a long time and then agreed.

"Bring Sarralyn, too." He added, glancing towards the room where their eight-year-old daughter was sleeping. When Daine looked like she might object, he stopped her. "No, she's already asking questions, and you know how clever she is. If we don't explain now then someone else might do it for us, and you know the sort of nonsense people say."

"That doesn't mean she'll understand, or that... she's too young, Numair."

"She's not a number."

"You know perfectly well that's not what I'm saying." Daine scowled at him. "I asked if you'd teach my riders – not our daughter. She already has nightmares after hearing about Carthak..."

"That's exactly my point. She's heard so many things about the war, but to her they're just nasty stories."

"She has nightmares about her da being executed by an evil emperor." Daine snapped, and then sighed and added, "And so do I, now I think on it. That's not a story to either of us."

He kissed her forehead sympathetically, but it was clear that he was utterly unmoved by her argument. "I want to protect Sarralyn, and the best way to do that is to be as honest with her as we can be. We agreed that, didn't we? I don't want to spend her childhood lying to her about the world being a gentle place."

"Her world is." Daine sounded mulish. "That's what we fought for."

"Sooner or later, her world has to reach outside of these doors, and she has to be ready for that. You found out the truth in the worst possible way, love. I don't want there to be any chance that Sa goes through the same pain that you did."

"Stone walls don't burn." The woman said sharply, and then got to her feet. When her husband caught at her hand she shook it away, and then smiled apologetically. "Let me go. I'll think it over."

It didn't take her long to calm down, and even less time to think once her head was clear. Daine walked slowly back along the dark corridor amusing herself with the thought that if their roles had been reversed, she wouldn't have seen her husband again for the rest of the night. It wasn't that she thought more quickly than Numair, it was just that with these kinds of choices she made her mind up and her stubborn nature refused to back away from the decision. Numair, on the other hand, argued with his own brain as a hobby.

She opened the door to their rooms and smiled at the sight of the man gently rocking one of the twins back to sleep. The toddler was dozing, but every so often his eyes would flicker open and he would make an odd sobbing noise.

"Rikash had a bad dream." Numair whispered when the woman kissed his cheek in greeting. Daine smiled and touched her son's fleshy arm. He cooed, caught in some nicer story, and his mother resisted the urge to laugh. It was still so rare for all three children to sleep through the night that it was wonderful to see that the baby had settled back down so quickly.

"We'll need to ask someone to watch them for us tomorrow morning," she murmured, "T'kaa might do it, and he wakes up early enough to ask." When the man glanced at her she shrugged. "Well, I think you're right about Sa, but since the twins are barely old enough to talk I'm fair certain they're not coming along."

"In a way, I wish they were old enough. I don't like having to do this more than once," Numair shifted the boy to one shoulder with the ease of long practice. Daine bit her lip.

"What is it that you do? I'm sure I could do it on my own, if you told me..."

"No." He shook his head vehemently. "I don't want you to. It's not that it's bad, but every time I do it I feel like such a... ugh." He shook his head again and rose to his feet, disappearing into the twins' room to put Rikash back to bed.

Daine was secretly glad that she had made the twins play the 'tidy-up game' that afternoon, because otherwise there would have been wooden blocks all over the floor. Numair was far too caught up in his own thoughts to watch where he was going.

"I did ask you to do it," she pointed out when he returned. "So it's not like you should feel bad."

Numair smiled a little ruefully and sat beside her, absentmindedly looping his arm around her shoulders. "It's more of an ethical quandary than a logical one, honestly."

"And that means...?"

"That... they'll feel bad tomorrow, so they won't get killed later. But they will feel bad tomorrow."

"Oh."

"And it brings back memories, too." He admitted this part more reluctantly, and glanced at her. "If you're going to be there, you should be ready for that."

"Of course I'll be there." She said with some energy, and then yawned, which spoiled the effect a little. "What is it about sleeping babies which always makes me want to go to bed?"

He tweaked her nose. "Habit? We know they're not going to wake up for a while."

"Gods willing!" She raised her eyes dramatically to the heavens and grinned when Numair laughed, since the movement made her lose her place against his shoulder. "Well, I guess if you're right we should make the most of it. I can't remember the last time it was just us."

"What did you have in mind?" The man asked. Daine thought, and then shook her head with a defeated laugh.

"Do you know, I can think of a thousand things I need to do, but I think I've lost the trick of thinking of things I want!"

"Well, you said you wanted to go to bed," he suggested, and there was a heated note in his voice which made Daine shiver. He felt the movement – of course he did, he knew her far too well to miss it – and when his wife raised an eyebrow at him he tried far too hard to look innocent.

"Oh, is that your idea?" She asked, and slid her arms around his neck. "Because, mister mage, maybe I meant that I was tired..."

He kissed her nose, drawing her slowly into his lap. "Are you tired, Daine?"

"I'm waking up," she murmured, and stopped his answering laugh with a fleeting kiss. "Numair, unless we're going to have two very awkward conversations with Sa tomorrow, it might be better if we actually went to our own room."

"You're doing that talk, Miss Midwife's-daughter."

"Mistress," she reminded him, and rolled her eyes. "Gods, all those years of pestering me and now you can't even remember that I'm married!"

"You are? You never said!" He caught her up in his arms and looked down at her in mock-horror. "Who are you married to?"

"I don't want to make you jealous," she cut her eyes up at him, trying not to laugh, and ran a finger along the line of his jaw, feeling where skin turned to stubble. "Well, he's got black eyes and black hair, and lovely tan skin like he's spent all day in the sun, even though he's always indoors reading, because he's clever, you know."

"Hm, doesn't sound like anyone I know..." Numair looked thoughtful as he carried her into their room and quietly closed the door. Instead of setting her on her feet, he sat on the edge of the bed and kept holding on to her, his hands strong on her back. "What else is he like?"

Daine pretended to think, and squeaked in surprise when he stole a rapid kiss. It made it difficult to find words, which (she was sure) had been his intention, given the amused expression he was wearing. She quickly edited her thoughts. "Uhm, he's tall and strong and kind and very handsome. I mean, he's not perfect. He can't ride a horse right, but I love him so much I don't tease him about it as much as I should."

"That sounds more familiar," Numair rubbed his nose against hers. "And I'm sure he's very grateful for your restraint."

"I'll ask him when I see him." She promised, and suddenly lost interest in the game. "I've missed this."

"Me too." He brushed a curl away from her eye and kept his hand there, palm warm against her cheek, fingers gently tracing the shape of her face.

Daine closed her eyes and leant into his caress, nuzzling against his hand. He was always so gentle, and since quietness was so rare in their lives it was the one thing which made time seem to pause. She knew full well that he was stronger than her, that if he wanted to he could close her in his arms and kiss her until the fire was the only thing that was left, but he never did.

And so she held her breath, and wondered if time really did stop for this. She could be eighteen again, feeling and learning all of this for the first time, or twenty-two where his touch had been the only thing comforting her in the long hours of her first labour. It didn't seem any less likely than to be twenty nine, still cherished, and still worth that gentle, loving slowness. She sighed and turned to kiss his palm, breaking the spell.

"Sweetheart," the man murmured, surprising her with the sincere question: "Are you happy?"

"Don't you know?" She smiled, thinking it was a joke but not understanding why it might be funny.

"I know you're tired. You won't tell me, but I know it." He was quite serious, "And you are right. This shouldn't be one of the things in our life which we miss, and I hate that we do. We both work so much, and when we're not working we're running after the children, and so we hardly ever spend time just being together anymore."

"But if you want to waste the time we do have making speeches..." Daine started, and he rolled his eyes at her.

"I'm not just talking about sex, Daine." After a moment's rapid thought he added, "Not that I don't miss having you all to myself, mind."

"You never did," she smiled ruefully and kissed his nose. "Before our little tribe there were the Scanrans, and before that all the immortals, not to mention those months having to be very secretive around our friends. Back then we thought being alone was finding a dark corner in whatever fort we were sent to and hoping like hell nobody heard us."

He smiled slowly, mischievously. "I remember. Exciting, wasn't it?"

She couldn't resist that smile. With a quickness that made him gasp out a laugh, she turned in his lap and kissed him. Before his hands could fix more securely on her back she shifted her weight, pushing him down onto the bed and pinning his shoulders down, straddling his waist so he couldn't sit up. He stared up at her, loving and breathless and flushed, and Daine leaned closer.

"It's always exciting, love." She breathed, her voice rich with promise. He shivered, and she lightly caught his lips for a moment. "Do you want me to show you why our bed is so much better than a dark corner?"

"Gods, yes." He reached up a hand and caught her, drawing her back down for another, much more heated kiss. Daine trembled, feeling for a moment as if all her limbs had turned to water. When she melted against him Numair let her fall, catching her in sure arms to lay beside him, entwined.

"I'm not sure I approve of you changing the subject." He breathed in her ear, and Daine giggled and looped her leg around his. The heated note in his voice changed, and with laughter he added: "But I definitely approve of how you're doing it."

"I'm happy." she said tartly, and started teasing the edge of his shirt up from his waist. "There. Is that enough of an answer to drop the subject altogether?"

"I might hold out, see how else you're planning to distract me..." he stopped teasing her with a gasp when she grinned wickedly and moved her thigh between his legs, pressing firmly against the ridge of flesh there and then moving sinuously against it. Choking back a moan, he tangled his hands in the woman's hair and crushed his lips to hers. His voice came out harshly. "Stop it, Daine. You know if you do that I..."

"... won't be holding out for long?"

"I take it back!" He gasped, and she relented with a chuckle.

"I really do like our bed." She winked at him, clearly enjoying his breathlessness, and started unlacing his shirt. Her voice became chatty, practical. "But I know you university types like things all done proper before you believe they're true. Are you convinced yet, my love?"

"Not even close." He returned. Daine's smile widened, and she tugged his shirt off so she could run her hand along his chest. When she lowered her head and kissed his exposed shoulder-blade he made a very satisfactory sound of pleasure, which seemed to pool in the woman's stomach and then spread languidly through her veins like molten fire.

"Then," she murmured, "I guess I should make my second argument."

888

888


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, when the odd haze of a rainy day was just beginning to be lit by the dawn, three members of the Salmalin family made their way down towards the rider barracks. Daine walked this route every morning and could have done it blindfolded, but today she held the hand of a yawning but curious child. Numair – never a morning person - looked even more sleepy than his daughter, rubbing his eyes and looking accusingly at the sun as if it were making the world early on purpose.

"Is this why all your classes are in the afternoons?" Daine asked. He cut his eyes at her, half laughing, half grouchy.

"Stop sounding so damned smug, you beautiful fiend. How are you so wide awake?"

"Oh, the twins started leaking at both ends while you were fetching T'kaa." Daine disguised a shudder badly. "The screaming alone would have raised the dead, I swear. Luckily that warding spell was still going, so..." she shrugged.

"Why was there a ward, ma?" Sarralyn piped up, always vividly nosy about anything to do with magic. It was a topic which she knew was forbidden for herself – grandma goddess had said so, at least until she was older- and so she was fascinated by it. Numair blushed, but the child thankfully missed it, and Daine was her usual implacable self.

"Dada cast one last night." She explained, and then a mischievous light lit her eyes and she added. "He was being noisy and we didn't want to wake you cublings up."

"Once again, my dear little magelet, you show a true talent for being about as subtle as a battering ram."

"...and because being noisy kept him awake half the night he's being a grouchy bear this morning, love. Tell him off for me?"

"Bad bear!"

"Close enough." Daine ruffled the girl's dark hair and grinned at her husband. "Battering rams have their uses, after all. Don't they, Numair?"

He laughed darkly at that but didn't answer.

Sarralyn blinked when her parents linked hands with each other, because she had never seen them do it outside of their own home. It was nice to see them laughing, and the little girl relaxed her grip on her ma's hand. Whatever adventure they were going on today, her ma and da were obviously not worried in the slightest.

When they reached the recruits, though, her father's relaxed air seemed to vanish.

The young men and women stared at him with wide eyes when he stood at the front of the group, because it was so unlike their teacher to ask anyone to assist her. But here was a strange man, looking intensely solemn as he introduced himself. Their eyes widened even further when they realised who he was, but their excited whispers soon faded. It was clear that something very serious was happening.

"You're the oldest recruits, is that right?" Numair asked the group, and got a few nods in reply. "So you'll be sent out on patrols in a few months – for bandits and immortals, correct?"

"Yes, sir!" A few voices shouted in happy unison. Daine hid a smile when the mage looked a little taken aback. Magic students never shouted; it would probably upset the books. The man recovered quickly, and looked around at the group.

"So, are you looking forward to seeing battle?"

A few answers were again shouted out, and Daine mentally shook her head at some of them. People were excited to be able to show off their skills, or to tell their families what they had done, or to spill blood. A few even spoke about it like some rite of passage, as if taking a human or an immortal life somehow made them more of an adult. Numair listened quite politely to all of the replies, nodding at the few which were talking about protecting the remote villages or practicing to defend their own homes. Most, as Daine had said, were not as realistic.

He waited for the recruits to fall into silence. Then, he held out a hand to his daughter, and when she ran forward and took it he lifted her up away from the mud and nodded towards the curtain wall. "Come on," he said simply to the riders: "We're going for a walk."

Daine followed just as curiously as her students, because she had no idea what Numair was planning. The fact that he was carrying Sarralyn made her nervous – not because she thought he would slip in the mud, but because it meant that whatever he was planning, the little girl would be right in the middle of it. They walked for ten minutes or so, skirting around the edge of the bailey and then leaving the castle through a gateway whose guards blinked at them with sleepy eyes.

Sarralyn perked up a little then, because this was the route which they often took to walk to the forest. She liked the forest, it was full of things with soft fur whose voices she was just beginning to be able to hear. Her father noticed her sudden excitement and kissed her cheek.

"Not now, dearest." He said softly, so that only she could hear. "But this afternoon I promise we will do whatever you want to do."

"What're we doing now, da?" The little girl asked, settling back down sleepily against his shoulder.

"We're helping mama." He looked at her levelly. "We're teaching something to all these people. And I want you to listen very carefully as well, alright?"

"Alright dada." She smiled trustingly, but there was a little worry in the expression. "Is it a hard lesson, da?"

"No," he looked sad for a moment and held her tighter. "But it's not easy."

"I kno-ow. Your lessons are never ever ever easy." She sighed.

"Sir," a voice piped up, and both Numair and the little girl looked to their left to see one of the recruits walking beside them. He had clearly run to catch up, and his face was red with effort. It turned redder under the legendary man's scrutiny, but the boy managed to nod a bow. "Sir, everyone wants to know where we're going."

"Going? You're following me." Numair said mildly, and Sarralyn nodded fiercely, supporting her father. The boy laughed nervously.

"Well yes... yes, sir, but the thing is that we... there are immortals nesting in the caves, aren't there? The ones near here? It's why we don't patrol here at all when we... we..." he choked and stopped speaking under the man's level look. "It's not safe, sir. We didn't know if you knew that, since you have... the little girl... with you."

"I'm not little." Sarralyn announced indignantly. "The twins are little! I'm not!"

"She's perfectly safe." Numair said shortly to the man, but his curt answer was mollified a little since it was obvious the lad was genuinely worried. Honest concern for his family was something the mage would always respect, no matter where it came from.

He shifted his daughter in his arms, moving her weight and making it so she was closer to the recruit. "Sa, what do you do if you see a stormwing?"

"Get low, and under trees." The girl replied instantly. "They can't fly through branches and they can't walk well on their claws."

"Perfect." He grinned. "What about... hmm, I'll ask you a hard one. What about a unicorn?"

"That's not hard, da! I cover my ears, 'cos if they whinny wrong then you can get the unicorn fever."

"Exactly." He ruffled her hair, and grinned at the stunned look on the recruit's face. "See the little bracelet she's wearing? That's a warding spell, like a barrier. I made it when our twins were newborns. I had to start bringing Sa to my magic class, and I didn't want her caught by any stray flares. It works just as well for most immortal magic."

"You tested it?" The boy looked doubtful. Numair nodded, getting more irritated by the boy's persistance.

"Of course I did."

"Against immortals?"

"Do you ask Dai... Mistress Salmalin, I mean... this many questions?" He retorted, "Or do you really think I don't care if my own daughter is in danger?"

"I just thought..."

"If you think you're in danger, Jain, then arm yourself." Daine cut in, her voice soft but full of command. The boy straightened up instantly, and made a hasty salute to her. The woman smiled reassuringly at him, but there was no doubt that she was giving an order when she continued: "Tell the others to arm up, too. You can be captain, today."

Numair glanced at her, seeing that her own bow was still securely strung across her back, and her hand was nowhere near either it or her dagger. "There are no immortals near here," he guessed in a whisper. She grinned and lowered her own voice.

"Of course not! But they don't know that."

"You are an evil woman, and I adore you for it." He teased, and then pulled a face at Sarralyn. The child giggled brightly. Against the sound of bows and knives being clumsily drawn, it was a jarring noise. Numair carefully set the girl on her feet, catching up her hand.

They kept walking for several more miles, and reached a meadow just as the sun broke through the drizzle. As the boy Jain had feared it was near to the caves, and a great jagged stone rose from the trees like a great felled tree stump. Whorls and swirls of rock made laughing faces which leered down at the grassland through the trees. The recruits gaped at it, but the meadow seemed pleasant enough. In the warmer sun the grass was already dry, and several flopped down onto it with sighs of relief.

Numair let them sit for a moment, getting their breath back after the long hike. Daine waited with the same curious impatience as her students, although from time to time she rubbed anxiously at her forehead. When she saw Sarralyn looking at her curiously she bit her lip and stopped.

"What are they?" Numair asked softly, recognising the nervous habit Daine had adopted when the colours of immortals buzzed in her mind. She thought for a second, and then gestured with her eyes towards the nearby caves.

"Spidren, mostly. Some hostile adults, more newly hatched." She kept her voice low so the child wouldn't overhear and be scared. "There's a lot of them, Numair. They're loud. Clamouring. _Angry."_

He nodded absently, looking towards the rocks and tugging at his nose. "They'll hear us soon enough. I've been planning to do something about that blasted nest for weeks."

"Wait, did you just bring us here to...?" Daine started, and scowled when he ignored her and stalked towards the riders. Pulling a face at his obstinate back, she took her bow down from her shoulders and then caught hold of her daughter's hand and held it tightly. "Sarralyn, you stay as close to me or dada as you can, alright?"

"What is this place?" A rider girl called out, rubbing her aching feet and ignoring the bow which she had absently dropped into the dirt. The grass sprang up lush and particularly verdant, and bright blossoms were littered through the blades. Perhaps that explained her sarcastic suggestion: "A picnic spot?"

"Hardly." Numair returned drily. He looked around at the recruits, who were spread out across the grass. "It seems you all selected your locations. Now I want you to dig."

"Dig?" They chorused, and Jain piped up: "Dig with what?"

"Haste." The mage suddenly looked stern, and as one the recruits leapt to their task. Clawing at the soft soil with their bare hands or chipping away at it with belt knives, they fell into a focused silence. Then someone cried out, "Why does it... change colour? Is it witched, sir?"

"No," Numair shook his head and glanced back at Daine and Sarralyn. The little girl flinched at the sadness in his eyes, and he looked quickly away to spare her from it. "Keep digging."

There was a cry, and then another, and several of the riders fell back from their holes as if they had been stung. A few of the others reached curiously down, brushing the dark red dirt away from the things which their digging had unearthed. Daine let go of Sarralyn's hand and looked curiously down into Jain's hole, since the boy had turned away with a sickened expression. Her own face paled, but her chin set. She understood what Numair was doing.

"Take them out of the ground." Numair ordered. There was no joking or complaining this time. Silently, each person reached into the soil and brought out a strange, mud-stained shape. The crimson dirt fell away in chunks, and showed the whiteness of bone.

"There was a battle here, in the Scanran war." The mage's voice was quiet, but every person listened so intently that they heard every word. "A fierce, bloody mess, between a group of bandits and Tortallans. The men and women who fought here weren't all trained like you. There were a few squires, perhaps ten or twenty archers, but most of them were just frightened people who were desperately trying to stop the bandits getting any closer to their families."

Daine shivered and moved closer to Sarralyn. The little girl stared at her father as he kept speaking.

"Afterwards, we found out that the Scanrans had promised the bandits land in exchange for fighting. They were starving, you see. There weren't enough people to bring in the harvest, and the poorest people always go hungriest. We don't know anything else about them, but those bandits fought as desperately as our own side, and they died as quickly."

Someone asked raggedly, "Who won?"

"Won?" Numair raised his hands a little, almost in a shrug. "They weren't fighting to win. The Scanrans, you see, had used the bandits as a decoy. They wanted to show us how close they could get to our home. Before the battle was half-done they sent their real weapon – a mage – to attack the riders' base. He cast mage-fire to clear the way. They all died, both Scanran and Tortallan. Their blood was seared into the soil and their bones fell where they died."

Everyone stared at the bones in their hands, at the bloodstained dirt, and even the birds seemed to have stopped singing.

"Whatever you dug up, take it home." Numair told them. "And give them a proper burial."

"But sir..." the girl asked dubiously, "How can I tell if this bone is... is Tortallan, or not?"

He looked down, not meeting anyone's eyes. "If you need to ask me that, then you clearly haven't understood the lesson."

There was a silence so deep that it felt like the air had thickened. Sarralyn broke it, still staring down into the hole Jain had dug. "Mama," she whispered, "There's a bad shape in my mind. It's getting closer."

Numair caught Daine's eyes, and she nodded. The spidren knew they were there.

"Arm up," he said, and when the recruits blinked at him he pointed at the caves. "I said arm up! They're coming."

888


	3. Chapter 3

Two days later, Numair had reached a decision.

He couldn't talk to Daine about it, though. Not yet.

She still hadn't woken up.

She had been unconscious now for long enough that even the twins had noticed. Numair had always secretly thought that the toddlers were so wrapped up in one another and their own secret language that their parents were just vague shapes that fed them. But one of the babies had opened his eyes that evening and burbled the word "mama" until his eyes filled with tears, and the other one started screaming as soon as Numair walked through the door instead of their mother.

He had calmed them down after a long time, and distracted himself with two thoughts. The first thought, which made him bear their screams, was that if they kept it up Daine might wake up sooner. The second thought, as he negotiated a squirming toddler in each arm, was that he was very glad that he had practiced juggling so much.

When they were finally quiet again, having screamed themselves into exhaustion, Numair quietly closed the door and then checked on Sarralyn. She was lying still beneath her thin summer blanket, her toy wolf cradled in one hand, and its soft wool tail lay across one cheek. On her other side Kitten was dozing, one ear pricked up. The dragon had been Sarralyn's most loyal protector since the day she was born, and since the day before when the girl was brought back pale and cold and upset from the lesson with the Riders, Kit had decided that Numair was Not-To-Be-Trusted. If she had been awake the man was sure he would have been chased from the room, but now he could step forward and pull the blanket down over Sarralyn's exposed feet.

She had been five when the twins were born, and sometimes Numair wondered if she could remember a single quiet night in her whole life. When she was younger she would wake up, but now she could probably sleep through ballista fire without even having a bad dream.

Her father smiled at that thought. Any other night he might have lingered in his daughter's room, drinking in her innocent peace and the knowledge that she was safe and warm in her own bed. But tonight he left as soon as he was sure she was sleeping.

In their own room, he lay down on the bed next to Daine and curled up against her, resting his head against her temple. He knew that he couldn't wake her up, and it made him feel a little better to hold her. He unpicked that emotion for a moment, trying to decipher it. Less guilty, perhaps, or a little less worried. He shouldn't be worried. After all, he tried to convince himself, Daine was as safe and warm as her daughter.

The first thought - that Daine was just asleep, and therefore safe – was summarily considered and dismissed. Numair could almost believe it, and (stroking her hair gently away from her pale cheek) he was almost reassured.

The second thought took its place: That he should feel guilty.

Was it his fault? The fight with the spidren hadn't been particularly dangerous, and the Riders fought back with skill and courage. They had barely needed command, although both Daine and Numair shouted out warnings as soon as their trained eyes noticed dangers. Daine picked off twice as many spidren as any other archer, and she shot cleanly until she ran out of arrows. Then...

Then...

Well, it was just a battle. They had fought in hundreds, and there wasn't much about it that was different. But then the juvenile spidren had reared back, and a group of older, stronger creatures had streamed out of the caves. The riders had rallied impressively, fighting the battle-scarred immortals without flinching, but they weren't prepared for their cunning. When a second group of experienced veterans flanked them, they were all taken by surprise. Individual spidren broke through their defences and swarmed into the melee with sadistic cries of glee.

One had headed straight for Sarralyn.

Daine's head had snapped around at the girl's cry. She had pressed her daughter into the nook of two great oaks, knowing she would be protected on most sides by the thick wood. The spidren that advanced on her had littered the ground with sticky web, and now the little girl was trapped in her own fortress.

Daine gasped out a cry and then she was running, sprinting, tripping over her own feet as they burst into claws. Within a few steps she was smaller, leaner, bounding forward on four paws instead of two. She ducked under the immortal's flailing broadsword with a snarl and leapt.

It was a short, furious scuffle. When the raging wolf tore the spidren's throat out, it gurgled out a scream which echoed around the clearing. Daine spat out the gory mess and jumped down, careless of the web dissolving around her. She fell to the ground as a wolf and stood up as a human, darting forward to stand between her daughter and whatever else might come their way.

Nothing else did. That scream had warned them away.

The rest of the battle was vicious, rapid and it soaked the ground with another layer of blood. It went as well as could be hoped. The well-trained riders survived with a few grim wounds and a few more terrified nightmares, and the caves were cleared of their vermin.

It was, for want of a better word, a victory.

Daine had fought in battles far more dangerous than that without batting an eyelid. But those battles hadn't made her turn on her husband, blind fury mixing in her eyes with bitter tears the moment they were in the privacy of their own home. And because of what had nearly happened to Sarralyn, because they were all still reeling from it, Numair didn't interrupt her tirade. Sarralyn listened with wide eyes, still in frozen silence, and Daine had never loosed her grip on the girl's hand.

There was something in the little girl's expression which finally made Numair react. Sarralyn looked at her mother's hand, the way that it was clenched around her own, and pure blind fear was suddenly stark on her face. She gasped and dragged her hand away, and when she couldn't pull free she made a keening, pleading sound which made her father's heart wrench. He grabbed Daine's wrist and pulled Sa free, seeing at once what had scared the child. Lifting Sarralyn into his arms, he let her wrap frightened arms around his neck before choking out:

"Daine, I know you're upset but you can't be this out of control. It's just not... not possible. Are you doing it on purpose?"

Daine flinched as she looked at her hand, and shuddered as the long wolfen claws shrank back into the pink crescents of human nails. "I... I don't know..." She looked up, suddenly bewildered, and tried again, her face suddenly waxen, "In the meadow, Numair, when they tried to attack Sa, I just... I couldn't..."

"Daine," he balanced Sa with one arm and stepped forwards, catching her arm. The woman clutched at him for a moment, and then fell to her knees and rocked, breathing too rapidly. And he couldn't do anything, because there were no answers, and nothing made any sense, and then she fell down and her eyes closed, and it still didn't make any sense.

And, somehow, that was his fault too. Because he had been there, and he had only been able to watch, and he didn't understand any of it.

He had brought Duke Baird here as quickly as the man could walk, and the man had healed up all of the wounds which the woman had got from fighting the spidren. When he checked her head he found no bruises or cuts that would explain her sudden fall.

"But I don't understand," Numair had persisted, "What's wrong with her?"

"She's exhausted." The man had shrugged, and looked at Numair's anxious expression with the steady gaze of an expert healer. "I take it she used her magic?"

"Not as much as... look, I think I would know if she'd drained herself, sir."

"Apparently not," the healer was completely implacable. He pulled up on one of Daine's eyelids, tutted a little under his breath, and took his hand away. "Well, perhaps it's her magic, perhaps it's not. I can't see anything else. There's nothing wrong with her, Master Salmalin."

"Apart from the fact that she's _unconscious."_

Baird raised himself to his feet, green eyes blazing. "I told you, she's sleeping. There's no need to take that tone with me. You may be a black robe, but for once you're not the only master in the room. Frankly, you know as little about healing as I do about turning people into trees."

"But I know Daine was fine this morning, and she didn't use much magic today. You have to tell me if something's made her sick. You must be able to see it. There has to be something." A pleading note crept into Numair's voice; he couldn't help it, and Baird softened at the man's obvious distress. He reached out and patted the man's shoulder.

"I swear to you, she's just tired. Put her to bed and she'll sleep it out." He hesitated and added, "If it's as odd as you say then I will come back each morning, just to check. But honestly, if there is an answer behind this then the best person to ask about it will be Mistress Salmalin herself, when she wakes up. And I promise you that she _will_ wake up."

So. Nothing wrong with her, but two days later Daine was still unconscious. She certainly looked like she was sleeping. When Numair spooned thin broth between her lips she raised her hands and pushed at him, weak as a kitten but still blindly a part of the dreaming world. It was just that whatever was holding her in the depths of sleep refused to let her break through that barrier.

Curled up against her, listening to the soft sigh of her breathing, Numair was too worried to let the darkness and the peace lull him to sleep. Two empty nights had given him a lot of time to think. Daine would have teased him, as she always had, for thinking too much. The man wondered if he should tell his wife that the most practical comments in his mind always seemed to be in her own voice. He decided not to; she would have been insufferably amused for weeks. The teasing would never end!

"Not that I would mind it," he whispered to her unhearing ears. "Not from you. You're my closest friend. But perhaps you would tell Alanna, or Lindhall... I don't like their teasing as much. And you're far too honest to keep secrets from them, magelet."

The notion made him smile, and then he stilled and frowned thoughtfully. That was a good point... Daine was always so close to her friends. They were her family. They were people who she had grown up trusting and loving, and who loved her back. He didn't think that she would have told them what was making her tired (he was still not convinced that Daine herself knew; what did Baird know about the woman, anyway?). But he realised that for months Daine hadn't been meeting her friends nearly as much as she usually did.

Even when she had three young babies in her care, Daine would stroll off to see Mari or her other friends with the twins sharing a basket and Sarralyn strapped neatly to her back. She still did that, with the oldest child walking beside her and the toddlers dragging at each hand, but not nearly as often as she used to. Numair had been furiously busy too, looking after their family in the mornings while Daine worked with the riders. They would eat lunch together, and then he would leave with Sarralyn to teach magic classes in the afternoons. Because the visits were a part of Daine's life, and something which Numair didn't really share in, he hadn't noticed how much they had changed. But now that he thought about it, the man realised that Daine must have been doing little except working and babysitting for weeks now.

(Numair never would have admitted it, but it was also an accurate description of his own life. He was, however, unaware of this. He was incapable of self-awareness. He had Daine for that, but since she was asleep, his thoughts were rather one-sided.)

"No wonder you're tired." He murmured.

The answer was simple. Daine needed to work less. (t would be wrong to wrap the twins up in their own sleeping spell for a week (Numair had suggested it to Daine, but only once, and never again). She would need to leave the riders, instead. Not forever, but for long enough that she wouldn't collapse after a single shapeshift.

As if on cue, Daine's eyes opened. She looked around dazedly for a moment. Sleepy and confused, she traced the hand which she found resting against her waist, and relaxed as soon as she recognised its shape.

"'mair." She mumbled, and then drew a deep breath and shivered herself more awake. "'m sorry. Di'nt mean to w'rry you. I'll be up inna minute."

"Ssh. Lie still." He held her a little closer. "I don't think you should move too quickly."

"I'm n't sick!" She laughed hoarsely, sounding irritated at his obvious concern."I think I just... maybe it was the heat or the... the change, the cold in the keep after the fields, or... look, I didn't mean to fall over. I'm fine now."

"You didn't fall over, Daine. You've been asleep for nearly three days. The healers came and looked at you, and everything."

She turned in his arms and gaped at him. "You're lying."

"Why would I?"

"I don't know. But you must be. Paying me back for scaring you, or... or..."

"With Duke Baird as my accomplice?" He asked softly, and she flinched and looked away. When she wriggled free of his hands he had to let her win. She would never have freed herself, because she was still moving so clumsily.

"Well, I suppose that explains why I'm so desperate for the privy." She sat up, swayed dizzily, and then found her balance and swung her legs to the side of the bed. When he moved the girl turned a glare towards him. "I don't need your help."

"Why are you so angry?" Numair burst out, catching her elbow regardless. She closed her eyes as the world spun, not pushing him away, but her mouth set in a thin line. The man remembered that the last thing before she had fainted had been their argument, and understood. "Oh. You're still upset about the spidren."

"It's not about the damned spidren!" she snapped, and then took a deep breath and made her laboured way towards the small room. "I'll not say a word about it until I'm done. I'm fair sure I'm about to burst."

"About what? About what made you sleep?" he called after her, and heard the reedy sound of one of the twins starting to cry. His voice must have been louder than he'd thought. Sighing, he hurried to comfort the child before he woke up the others.

When he came back, Daine was sitting on the edge of the bed with her head cradled in her hands. She was ghostly white, even in the amber firelight, and her hands were shaking. When she realised her husband had returned she straightened her back and raised her chin, and he sighed.

"Don't bother pretending, Daine. I won't fuss over you if you don't want it, but you know I hate it when you lie to me."

"I didn't say a word." She managed, and then all of the fight seemed to drain from her and she sank her chin back into her hands, staring blankly at the floor. Numair opened his mouth to demand that she give him some explanation – because, with her strange mood, had come the sure knowledge that Daine knew exactly what was wrong. He almost wanted to shake her. But then, before he could say a single word, he realised that she was crying. Small, shining tears had gathered in her eyes, and although she tried to catch them in her outstretched fingertips there were too many to hide.

"Daine," he whispered, utterly at a loss. "Please."

She didn't look up. Perhaps she couldn't. Her voice was almost inaudible. "I never said a word. I didn't. Couldn't. And I'm glad now, I never told you and it... it... don't ask me, please, Numair. Don't, you'll feel it if I do, and it hurts! Oh gods," she wrapped her arms around her stomach then with a strange cry and burst into tears. "It hurts so much!"

He caught her up in his arms and held her tight, feeling the hot tears soaking into his shirt when she buried her face against his chest and sobbed. What could he do except hold her close and let her cry? He still had no idea what was wrong, or how to comfort her. He had missed something, and every tear felt like another failure.

He thought: _Finding out the truth can't hurt as much as this... this helplessness._

And then he saw something else and knew in an instant that he was wrong.

The drops caught the firelight on the floor near the hearth and shone orange, a gleaming trail which traced the woman's steps. When she had returned to the bed she had taken another route, meandering dizzily, and the flow of liquid was heavier: a dark and viscous mess in the shadows. On the bed, where she had been sitting, it was dark red and had soaked through the sheets. Daine's hands were cold around his back, and her tears were quickly becoming quiet, exhausted gasps for air.

"Oh, love..." Numair kissed her temple, her forehead, her cheek, tasting his own tears as well as her own, "Daine, I'm so sorry."

"It's my fault," she whispered, and then started crying again. "I shouldn't have... but when that Spidren went after Sa I didn't even think, I just had to defend her, and then... then, when I changed back, I just felt so odd, and she was crying and I had to keep pushing back and then..."

"Pushing back?" He asked, barely realising he was speaking aloud. Daine drew a sharp breath, and he knew that this must be the thing she had been hiding from him. Instead of asking again, he shifted his arms to make them both a little more comfortable and took out his handkerchief to dry their eyes. Daine took it with shaking fingers, unable to meet his gaze.

"She... her magic came back last birthday." She finally admitted, and then: "I've been... making sure she doesn't use it."

"You've been stopping her magic?" Numair bit down the many moral objections he had to that idea and his whirling mind settled on adding, "So that's where your magic's been going?"

"N...not all the time. She gets stronger when she's upset. I don't want her accidentally shifting." Daine looked down at the damp square of cloth. "If I'd known we would be fighting so many veteran spidren yester... the other day, I would have told you. Warned you, I guess. But we... you didn't say, and I..."

"Stop." He shook his head, opened his mouth to say something, and then changed his mind. His tone became strangely detached. "Daine, I need to fetch you a healer."

She flinched and looked up, her eyes huge and pleading. "Aren't you going to say something?"

"I don't know what I should say." He said. "So I don't... I can't..."

"Yes." Daine pulled away from him and curled up on the bed, staring at the blood on the floor with blank, exhausted eyes. Her voice was choked, quiet. "I understand."

He hesitated, touched her shoulder, kissed her cheek. She didn't react, but a single tear welled at the corner of one eye.

"I don't blame you," he choked on the words, but they were spoken, whether he believed in them or not. They sounded like they were coming from another person.

Daine shuddered and closed her eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

f she hadn't drained all of her magic then Daine would have recovered quite quickly. She was still young, and strong, and after a few days the pain had gone. But a bone-deep exhaustion had sunk into her bones. Baird said it was mostly caused by her body and magic's exhaustion, but Daine wondered if it was something else. She could sleep her way out of tiredness, but not this. It seemed impossible to escape from the heavy weight of guilt and sorrow which crushed her until she wanted to scream.

Numair cared for her as much as he could alongside the children, and although he allowed Sarralyn into their room he flatly refused to let Daine care for the twins at all. When she was well enough to get out of bed, his wife asked him to help her to the main room, where she spent her days curled up under a blanket by the fire. When Sarralyn wasn't with Numair or T'kaa she would sit with her mother, unusually quiet, not sure how to speak to this new mother who was so slow and dour. Daine welcomed the little girl into her arms and would cuddle her like an infant until Sarralyn grew bored and wriggled free. Then Daine would stare at the fire, and often fall asleep there with tears drying on her cheeks.

"This isn't right." Numair said, coming home the sixth night from his class and finding her that way. He caught her hand and held it. "You can't keep dwelling on it, love."

"I can't do much else. You won't let me."

"Don't make me the villain when I'm just worried about you. I'm not a tyrant." He snapped, and left to put the twins to bed. When he came back it was with gritted teeth. "If you're bored, why don't you teach your daughter?"

"She gets bored with my lessons. She's your daughter too, remember. She's too clever for me." Daine shrugged and looked back at the fire. Numair caught her chin to make her look around.

"Teach her your magic."

"No. I won't." She dragged herself back and folded her arms stubbornly. "She's too young. She hardly knows her own shape yet. If she shifts and gets stuck, what could we do?"

"Keeping her ignorant won't keep her safe." He said sharply, and Daine shook her head vehemently.

"That's what you said about taking her out with the riders." She saw that he was about to argue back, and suddenly wanted nothing more to do with it. "Oh, leave me alone."

Perhaps the constant bickering would have pushed them even further apart, but every night Daine would cling to her husband, unable to sleep unless he was holding her safely. For his part, Numair was glad – not happy, but a little reassured – that in some way his friend wasn't going through so much pain on her own.

As much as they shared the same sorrow, he knew that Daine must feel it a hundred times more keenly. She had known she was pregnant. She had had the thrill of discovery, started feeling the vague fluttering of hope, of anticipation. She might have had plans, or even been thinking of names.

All of that had been torn away from Daine, alongside the child she had felt dying inside of her for three days while she slept. And Baird could have done nothing, even if he had looked for the insignificant life she had carried. By the time he was there the damage was already done.

How did Daine see that? She wouldn't tell Numair, but he knew her practical mind far too well. The life of the living and the life of the unborn had struggled against each other, and whose fault was it that one of them had lost?

Daine's fingers dug into his wrist, and he gently eased them free and held her hand. Another nightmare. Numair kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, the small tender gestures which she had become so cold to when she was awake. Daine sighed and settled, her clenched fist slowly uncurling in his hand. In her dreams, at least, she still loved him enough to be comforted.

When the sun rose, Numair knew, she would wake up and remember all over again. She would spend another day hating everything around her for daring to look the same, when the whole world felt so different.

Numair understood that. He envied her anger. His own emotions were so deeply buried that they choked him, but he needed to be strong. He couldn't let sorrow cloud his judgement or make him weak, when four people needed him so desperately.

Yesterday he had found himself in the corridor, staring at a livid bruise which was throbbing across his knuckles, and a crack that was still rippling through the plaster on the wall. He could barely remember hitting the wall, just the blinding wave of emotion which had flared up and sent him reeling from the room. Before he ventured back he had found a healer and paid them a goodly sum to keep the injury secret.

So really, he couldn't blame Daine for her own silence, as much as he detested it. He was just as bad. They had been married for nine years – and a couple for nearly a decade – but they couldn't manage to say a single word to each other when it really mattered.

It was unacceptable.

No, because that implied it couldn't be fixed. It was a difficult problem. Numair had made a living out of solving difficult problems.

The man bit his lip, sighed, and let go of Daine's hand. Careful not to wake her, he slid out of bed and crept into the main room. Pressing long fingers to his eyelids, he whispered a few words and then blinked three times. When he opened his eyes, he could see in the dark. Then he found a jar of vanilla oil in the chaos of his workspace and poured six drops onto each foot, and one onto each knee. The oil smelled sweet and bitter for a second, and then he twisted his hands together and it blazed amber. His next steps were completely silent. Smiling for the first time in days, he picked up a travel bag and headed into the twins' room.

Daine woke up the next morning and headed into the main room in her nightshirt, rubbing at her eyes and keeping one hand on the furniture or doorframes just in case her dizzy head decided to send her sprawling again. She stopped short in the doorway, baffled to see Numair asleep in one of the chairs, his long legs stretched out so far that his feet were nearly in the fire. It didn't look like he had slept there on purpose, because a book had fallen open across his face. He might have been reading it, but for the resounding snore coming from the pages. The girl caught up the book, marking the page carefully before closing it. Numair's eyelashes fluttered at the sudden rush of light.

"Didn't the librarians already tell you off for getting jam on the last one?" Daine murmured, and put the book down. Numair smiled, not opening his eyes.

"It was butter." He said sleepily.

"Shocking." Daine winced as the room span and sat down beside him, shutting her own eyes until the spinning stopped.

Numair opened one eye and glanced at her. "Didn't you once send one back with muddy paw prints all over the cover?"

"I sent it back, but the paw prints weren't mine. I told Kit off just like I'm tellin' you off."

"If we're speaking literally, then, I can't really make butter."

Daine laughed quietly and rested her head against his shoulder, eyes still shut. Numair was happy to see her in a brighter mood, but he still found himself frowning at her pale skin and flushed cheeks. It was so early that even the twins hadn't awoken, and so he felt it was quite logical to say: "Daine, perhaps you should try to get a few more hours sleep."

"I want to be useful today." She ignored him with supreme archness and moved further away. "When my head clears I can go and check the coops, see if those idiot birds need anything doing."

"You're still dizzy, sweetling, ergo you're not going anywhere."

"I feel much better, ergo you can mind your own... what does ergo mean, anyway?"

"Therefore, and don't change the subject." If there hadn't been a warning voice in his head telling him to try to stay calm, Numair might have snapped at her. As it was, he took a deep breath and said the carefully prepared speech he'd repeated over and over until he fell asleep. It came out in an incoherent rush.

"Daine, we can't go on like this. We can't keep... hiding things from each other. It's what started this mess and it's still going on, and it's making us fight so much that I feel like we barely know each other right now. If it carries on I know we'll end up avoiding each other, and after that it'd be so difficult to fix, and I want us to fix this. Really I do, Daine. I love you too much to hate you and I can't bear staying here, thinking that you hate me.

"I've been thinking a lot and I think we both need a change. A break. And we won't get it here. People are always asking us to do things just because we're around. So... Daine, let's go home. Let's go to the tower and just be a family for a while. For as long as we need. Please, we need to do something to... to make the world stop whirling."

Daine's eyes had widened throughout the whole speech, and when he finished she whistled softly through her teeth. That was her only reply for a long time, and then she slowly said, "I don't hate you."

"But you don't love me anymore."

Gods, those words hurt. And so did her silence, the way that she looked down rather than into his eyes, the way tears brightened her lashes. "I don't love anyone anymore, Numair. I think I've turned to stone."

"No," he whispered, and kissed her forehead. "No, sweetling, you haven't. But I don't think staying here will change the way you feel."

"And what if I can't change? What if this is it?" She raised her chin, defiant even as her soft mouth trembled and her grey eyes pleaded with him. Numair didn't know how to answer. The thought was so abhorrent to him that he never allowed himself to consider it. Daine must have seen that, because she sighed and stood up, steadying herself against his shoulder and letting her hand linger.

"I'll try," she promised, "I can't cope with feeling this way for much longer. But please don't think it's something you'll be able to just... fix, Numair. If it was that simple I'd've done it myself."


	5. Chapter 5

Kitten streaked away the moment they reached the tower, crowing with delight at being in her old home. The little dragon had friends among the local cats and some of the wild animals from the woods, and it had been a long time since they had been here. She whistled to them, half gleeful at the thought of seeing her friends, half concerned that they might have been eaten since the last time she saw them.

Sarralyn jumped down from the wagon more slowly, her face set in a pout. She had wanted to ride her pony to the tower, and was still sulking that her da had refused. They had taken a small hay wagon for the bags and so Daine and the twins could sleep on the journey. Numair knew his daughter would not be able to ride for the hours it would take to get home, and so Sarralyn had been cooped up with them in the dusty hay for far too long. As soon as they reached the courtyard she untied the mare from the back of the wagon and led her towards one of the paddocks, not bothering to look around.

That left the twins, who had been travel sick the whole way, and Daine, who had held them and cleaned up their tears and vomit with the same blank indifference she had for most things. When she climbed down, holding one child and handing down the other, her face lit up with the first genuine pleasure she had felt for ages.

"We're home," she murmured to her children, and kissed their foreheads. The twins tolerated it better than they might have done if they hadn't been missing their mother for so long. As it was, each had grabbed a coil of her hair and refused to let go. Numair jumped down from the front of the wagon and helped his wife to free herself. The twins were placed on the ground, and they stared around with wide eyes at the gentle wilderness which surrounded the stone tower. Several feral cats rubbed against them, purring, and within a minute both the boys were laughing and chasing the soft creatures with clumsy steps.

"That's the last we'll see of the twins for a while," Daine said, smiling after them. "Shoeena is the best babysitter I ever met, I swear to Shakith."

"I'm sure Thayet would love to hear that she's not as good as a cat," Numair teased, and went to unload their bags. Daine helped by handing parcels down from the back, but the jolting of the carriage had clearly hurt her, and so she balked at the trying to standing up. Numair took their bags into the tower and then walked back over to the carriage, looking at her without saying anything.

"Give me a minute," the woman said, trying to sound playful. It fell flat.

"Ask me to help you," he replied. Daine blinked at him, and he shrugged. "I know it annoys you when I fuss over you, so while we're here I've decided I won't do it. Even if you very, very obviously can't do something on your own, I won't make a fuss."

"You'll just stand over me saying 'I told you so'?" She couldn't help laughing at that, because it was so ridiculous a solution, but it obviously made perfect sense to her husband. He nodded seriously, but his eyes were mischievous. Daine kicked her legs against the air. "Well then, Mister Mage, I suppose I can admit that my legs have turned into jelly. What do you suggest?"

"Suggest? I wouldn't dare." He picked her up very carefully, pausing when she winced and holding her still in his arms until the pain faded. Daine caught her breath and then looked at him incredulously.

"Don't tell me that's another thing you're giving up?"

"What do you want to do, love?" He asked, evading the question.

"I want to be useful."

"Alright." Numair carried her into the tower and put her down carefully in the front room. For some reason all of the bags they had brought with them were stacked around the sofa, and when he put her down on it Daine understood with a laughing groan.

"Forget fussing. You knew exactly what I would say!" she guessed correctly. Numair grinned at her, and waved a cheeky hand as he left to hunt down the children.

"Enjoy unpacking, magelet."

A few hours later, after the bags were neatly sorted into piles for each room and she had drifted in and out of an exhausted nap, Daine felt much stronger. She privately wondered if the quiet had anything to do with it; unlike their home at the castle, the tower was large enough that you couldn't overhear every noise every other inhabitant made. With Sa in the stables and the twins playing with the cats, she knew that her family were safe and content without needing to hear them. Yawning, she struggled to her feet and made her way into the kitchen, dragging the last bag with her to unpack.

Before they had left Corus, Numair had asked the kitchens for a goodly amount of food. Daine knew her husband's housekeeping skills, and so she was expecting cold meats and trail broth mix. She was delighted to find a crock full of game stew, which she immediately put into a pot over the fire to heat up. Then she unpacked more treats: a large seed cake wrapped in waxy paper and a fresh loaf of bread. There was even a spelled, cold flask full of creamy milk and a large clay jar of honey. Under all that was the raw food – hessian sacks of vegetables, dried meat and cheese, flour and rice.

"Mama," A small voice piped up, and Sarralyn's hand appeared near the cake. Daine swatted at her, grimacing.

"You wash those grubby hands first!"

"First?" The little girl rushed to the sink and struggled with the stone-hard bar of soap. "So I can have some?"

"Well, it must be nearly tea time. The sun's setting." Daine smiled at her daughter and started putting the food away. "Help me clear the table, Sa."

"I should do it all." Sarralyn said, and then unaware that she was making a misstep, carried on: "Da says I'm to learn to be a grown up now we're home. I'll be a proper lady and earn my seed cake and he'll be so proud of me."

"Are you more excited about your dada's pride, or the cake?" Daine asked, genuinely curious. Sarralyn thought for a moment.

"Well, if dada's proud, then he might spend more time with me. Every morning when he says good morning he goes to the twins, then me. Maybe if I'm good he'll wake me up first?"

"Oh, love." Daine beckoned her over and hugged her briefly. "I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose. It's just that the twins take longer to wake up, and you're growing so fast you need more sleep."

"I don't think that's true, mama." Sarralyn said solemnly. "They've grown out of five lots of clothes this summer, but I can still fit into my yellow dress I got at midwinter."

"Good!" Daine flashed her a smile. "After what your auntie Thayet spent on it I expect you to get married in that dress."

"Hm." The little girl considered that for a moment, and then picked up a crumb of cake and chewed it. "Do you want to see something, ma?"

Carefully raising her hands, the girl fixed her face into an expression of absolute concentration. When her mother started asking a question she shushed her and then, without warning, pulled an egg out of her ear.

"Do you like it?" she giggled at Daine's stunned expression. "I practiced ever so hard!"

"Did your da show you how to do that?" Daine asked, smiling. Sarralyn nodded.

"I asked him to teach me magic, but he would only show me silly magic. He said if I wanied proper lessons I had to ask you."

"Take some cake to the twins and Kit." Daine said, and there was a sudden sharpness in her voice that made the child agree at once. She grabbed three slices of cake without looking and had almost madd it to the heavy wooden door which led from the kitchen to the yard when a hand fell on her shoulder.

"Sa..." her mother had to clear her throat, and when she tried to speak again her voicewas rough. Sarralyn wondered if the vague 'sickness' her da had described was really just a cold as Daine continued, "Sa, you don't really want real, difficult magic lessons, do you?"

The girl grinned. "Dada says that if things are difficult they must be worth learning."

"Yes, he probably does say that." The woman sighed, and let her daughter go. She turned and cut a large piece of cake, holding it out with an oddly defiant look on her face. "Here, give him this,and tell him his stupid plan worked."

"I'm a messenger today!"the girl took the cake happily. "Daddy told me to show you my trick, and you made an answer!"

"He told you to say that?" Daine scowled and folded her arms. "New mission, love. You throw that cake at him."


	6. Chapter 6

Daine did not know the word 'depression', but she could have described it better than the endlessly tedious dictionary Numair would have turned to. Of course she had previously felt unhappy, and angry. This was something else. She recognised those feelings now as distant, shouting figures on a far away horizon. Sometimes they called her loudly enough for her to hear them, and she wept or raged at them, but more often they were blurred and meaningless. Daine thought, in a detached way, that she was probably supposed to feel miserable rather than simply thinking miserable thoughts. The truth was, she struggled to feel anything at all.

Food lost its flavour, and she lost interest in eating or drinking because of that. She drew water from the very bottom of the well, where it was so cold that she could feel it humming against her teeth for long minutes afterwards. Clothing became similarly disinteresting; she wore comfortable clothes which were easy to drag on, and often fell asleep in the clothes she had worn during the day. However, she bathed with an almost fervent need to feel clean, and scrubbed at her skin so hard it felt red and sore.

The twins avoided her because they had a typical toddler fear of soap, and they knew that their delightful new muddy life with their new furry friends had the unfortunate side effect of more baths. When Daine did catch them, or they came sobbing to her with some half-imagined injury, she would care for them and hug them with the automated habit of any conscientious parent. Underwear was checked, noses were blown, tummies were filled and games were played. But Daine only kissed them when it couldn't be avoided, feeling a cold disgust at herself. She was such a liar, playacting a tender gesture and feeling nothing except the clammy touch of sticky skin under her dry lips.

She didn't dare try it with Numair. She felt sure he would see through the act in an instant. When he gathered her into his arms at night she turned her face away and closed her eyes, feigning sleep rather than risk a single kiss.

Perhaps I do still love him, she thought, in her detached way. If I didn't then I wouldn't care if I was lying to him or not.

The thought wasn't particularly comforting, and for several nights she slept badly because of it. It felt as if she should be able to break through to Numair, and yet he was as far away as one of her distant emotions, shouting incomprehensibly from the horizon. If she longed to reach out to anything then it was to him, and yet he felt further away than anything else.

One night she turned so often in his arms that he half woke up and drew her closer, wordlessly wanting, lean and hard against her implacable softness. She couldn't bring herself to kiss him and yet she found herself drawing him closer until his eyes opened fully and he pulled himself away.

"You don't want this, Daine."

"Please," She whispered, "I need to feel something. Anything."

He looked sympathetic, but even though he brushed her hair back it was clear the gesture was more caring than passionate. "No, sweetling. That's a terrible reason."

She hesitated. "Maybe it would fix this. If we... if I... if you gave me another baby, then..."

"That's an even worse reason." For all the sudden angry restraint in his set jaw, his words were curt and matter-of-fact. He rolled away from her and pulled the blanket up around his ears. "Go back to sleep, Daine."

"Don't you want another baby?" She demanded, and when he didn't move she raised her voice. "At least you've been spared that bother, then!"

"For Mynoss' sake! Go to sleep." He growled, and when she drew another breath he cursed and sat up. Swinging his legs around the side of the bed, he gathered up his pillow and made his way to the door. He refused to look at her, and his words were clipped and angry. "I don't want a fight. I'll sleep in the hayloft."

"I won't miss you!" She retorted, and this time he did shoot a scornful glance her way.

"Really? Two minutes ago you were singing a very different tune!"

"Don't wake up the horses." She snapped, and buried herself in the covers. When she heard the door click behind him she lay awake, her eyes wide open, and felt an odd shimmer of surprise in her stomach. She honestly hadn't thought he would leave.

It just didn't fit into the calm, ordered way he saw the world. They hadn't slept apart since the war had ended. Then they were married, and so they slept in the same bed, and even when they were angry or sick they didn't change that.

Daine sat up and fiddled absently with a stray thread on the blanket. He had left. He loved her and he was the one who wanted them to fix everything, but he was the one who had left.

She pressed her cold hands to her warm cheeks and remembered what she had said to him about the baby. Gods, if he had said it to her she would have thrown something. But... but...

For the first time, Daine saw her husband's grief. It was different to her own, and she realised how he had tried to hide it. He had even hidden if from his wife as if she were one of the children, needing to be sheltered.

And she had acted like a child, hadn't she?

Stricken with guilt, she gathered up the blanket and tiptoed past the children's rooms down into the stable. It was freezing out there, and dark, and even the horses were muttering in their sleep. The loft was a little warmer, and Daine realised that Numair had enchanted a sack of grain to make it warm enough to curl around. Still, he was huddled up. She stepped closer and hesitated until his eyes flicked up and he made an odd sound. Not quite pleased to see her, not quite awake.

"Please," She tried, and then cleared her throat. "I'm sorry for what I said. I am sorry. Please... if you don't want to come back I don't blame you but I... I brought you the blanket if you want to stay out here."

She held it out rather pathetically, and he blinked.

"Please," She said again, "I know you hate being cold." Then her reserves of courage wavered and she dropped the blanket from numb fingers. Unable to look at him, she whispered, "I really am sorry. I was horrible. I won't do it again. I won't say anything about the baby ever again. I shouldn't have... I can't..." and then she shook her head and pressed her hand to her forehead, forcing her magic not to burst out of her and wake up the sleeping animals. It was always more difficult when she was upset, and after so many days of numb blankness her emotions writhed like insects under her skin.

"Daine," cold hands teased her fingers away from her face, and without thinking about whether he was upset or angry or forgiving her, Daine threw her arms around his back and buried her face in Numair's shoulder. He sighed and stroked her hair.

"Of course you should talk about the baby. I want you to talk about it. And don't accuse me of fussing over you. I need to talk about it, too. How can I grieve if I don't... don't understand? I don't know what to do." The man's voice trailed off for a moment, and Daine felt him shaking his head against her hair. She wondered if he knew that he was still speaking aloud. Then his voice grew stronger and he pushed her back a little, meeting her eyes seriously. "But, Daine... you don't really think of the baby as something which we could just replace, do you?"

"Of course not!" She felt sick to her stomach, and if he hadn't already drawn away from her she would have pulled back herself in self-disgust. Because he was being so honest an odd shard of guilt made her confess: "I'm so used to trying again when I do something wrong, I just can't accept that this is something which just... happened that way."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

Daine knotted her hands together and her voice became very low, very bitter. "I did everything wrong. Everything. I was so... so arrogant." A cold note, distant and chilling, crept into her voice. "I should have known better. I couldn't even work out how to shift with Sarralyn without your help. We would have lost her, too. And the others, prob'ly." She sighed and turned away, her words growing vague. "I couldn't do any of it on my own. But this time I wanted to try."


	7. Chapter 7

"The first thing you have to learn," Daine said in a stern voice, "Is that you have to listen."

Sarralyn pulled a face at her and tried to climb into her mother's lap. Daine gently pushed her back on to her own chair and held her still until the little girl burst out, "Alright mama, I'm listening."

"I don't mean listening to me." The woman's mouth twitched in something close to a smile. "I don't think you'll ever learn that trick. I meant listening to the People."

"That's what the magic does." Sarralyn whined. "Why do I have to study that? I want to be a bird. The animals wouldn't care until they need me to talk for them."

Daine took a deep breath and struggled to find the right words. Every time her daughter said things like that she had to force herself not to draw on her own gift and smother the untamed flares of magic in her child's core. Gritting her teeth, she tried to explain.

"The People have been talkin' well enough for hundreds of years without our help. They don't need us pretending we're better than them just because we walk on two legs. They have no reason to trust us and even less to help us, so if we just forced our way into the herd with our magic and forced them to obey, they'd turn on us the first chance they got. Whatever shape you were in, miss, they'd know you for a human."

Sarralyn looked down at the swarm of cats which followed them around the tower. She had grown up with the animals who had been tamed by her mother's magic, so she only knew about their purring and their playing, not their teeth and claws. She looked utterly unconvinced when Daine tried to explain feral natures to her, and by the end of their first lesson the woman looked at her daughter's smug smile and sighed. Sarralyn had been delighted when she had learned she was to have magic lessons, and it seemed harsh to teach her the cruel lessons so soon, but it was as Numair had once said. Their children had no idea that the world was not gentle and peaceful. The only way to protect them was to show them the truth.

That evening Daine scoured through the piles of books in the study until she found one which had made her own skin crawl when Numair had given it to her. It was a list of carnivores – animals which had fascinated her the way birds called to Sarralyn. Instead of notes about their diet or their clans, the book focused on only one thing: how each animal killed its prey. Beautifully drawn images of sharp claws and teeth stood next to sketches of torn hides and dessicated remains. And the animals were not exotic beasts or legendary killers: the book began with birds, dogs and feral cats.

Do you think it's too much? She asked one of the cats, showing them one of the open pages. The cat peered at it with her emerald eyes and then mewed softly.

I learned how to use my claws when my mama saved my sisters and I from a hawk. She licked her paw. I was two days old, and I lived through my third day frightened of the blood on mama's fur, but by the fourth day I was happy she had done it. I would have died if she hadn't.

I killed a monster for Sarralyn two months ago. The woman admitted, adding, She has nightmares about me now.

But she wakes up. The cat flicked her tail out in a shrug and stalked away. Daine sighed and tapped her fingers against the spine of the book. At least if it gave Sarralyn nightmares she would be able to talk to her. Lately, every time the girl woke up in the night, she would run to Numair and sob incoherently about stormwings and wolves until the shredded memories faded. Daine could not even rest a hand on the girl's shoulder without making her sob harder. In the morning the fear and the dreams had disappeared, and she would kiss both her parents with the same bright smile, but her faceless nightmares were impossible for either of them to truly banish.

Daine left the book beside Sarralyn's bed and didn't mention it to her at supper. If she read it, then she would ask questions. If she didn't, then at least her mother hadn't traumatised her. She ate her supper nervously, and excused herself to put the twins to bed.

Both of the boys screamed when she bathed them, but quietened when a duck waddled into the room and let her ducklings jump into the water with them. The tiny birds bobbed and cheeped in delight as the boys splashed them and made high pitched squeaking noises back. Daine gave up dodging the flying water after a few minutes, and tried to fish one of the sponges out of the chaos to scrub Rikash's neck.

"Maba!" He crowed, and plunged both chubby fists into the water, sending bubbles flying straight into his brother's face. A look of absolute surprise made his mouth drop open in an O, and he glared at his twin until the bubbles trickled down his forehead and tickled his nose. When he sneezed his whole body moved, and a duckling who had been climbing up his knee fell back into the water with an indignant squawk. Daine rushed to pick the boy out of the water at the same time as the duck sped past to get her duckling, and in the confusion Daine managed to end up with an annoyed, quacking adult duck in her arms.

It was so ridiculous it made her laugh, and all of the tension of the last few hours ebbed away. She laughed so helplessly that the boys joined in, and when she belatedly remembered to let the duck go she could hear her muttering to her ducklings about the idiot humans and their soapy ponds.

Numair came into the room to see what was going on and nearly slipped on the soaking wet floor. He watched as an angry duck marched some very soggy ducklings out of one door, with a small naked boy crawling determinedly after them quacking away merrily. He scooped his son up and smiled at him. "Are you having fun?"

"Mama fun." The child said merrily, and poked his father in the ear. "Quack!"

"Quack!" Daine gasped, and collapsed in another fit of laughter. She fished the other twin out of the bath and kissed his forehead. "Are you a duck now, too?"

"Meoooow!" The boy stretched out the word in a long, mischievous way, and Daine started laughing again and carried him carefully away from the slippery floor. When she got to the doorway she looked up at Numair, her face bright with laughter, and he bowed courteously as he got out of the way. She bit back another laugh, pulled a face at him, and lifted Rikash out of his arms to carry both children into their room. It was a trick which Numair had never perfected, and he looked a little envious at the way she managed to carry both babies at the same time.

"They wriggle less than lambs and goats." She told him, reading his expression perfectly. As if to argue with her, both of the boys started crowing to be let down. She sighed and tightened her grip on their slippery backs. "Have you been teaching them to prove their mama wrong?"

"It's hereditary." He confided with a smile. Daine looked from one child to the other, asking both of them if they had any idea what that word meant. When they had both shaken their heads she made an exaggerated sigh and raised her eyebrows at her husband.

"It means you gave me three beautiful children who are more mule headed than both of us put together, magelet."

"And then you gave them back." She pulled a rueful face at her sons, who were squabbling in their own language, and added, "…to torment me."

"Exactly." He kissed her forehead and smiled. "Put the ducklings to bed, sweetling. I'll look after Sa."

It took a long time to calm the twins down enough to put them to bed, and in the end Daine had to let them crawl into the same cot. They were always so much more peaceful when they were together, and they never slept more deeply than when they were curled around each other.

Daine watched them fidget and paw at one another for a while, remembering how they had felt when they still slept inside her womb. Even then they had only been comfortable when they were entwined in one heavy lump. They had screamed when they were born, not because of the light or the smoke from the fire but because they had been torn apart. She remembered kissing their tiny faces for the first time and tasting their tears, wondering at the love which two such tiny children already felt. She felt like an intruder, even in those first moments with her own blood still sticky on their skin. They grew to love her with the passionate, mindless adoration of any child for its mother, but she knew their love for each other had been there first, and burned more strongly than any other fire in their lives ever would.

Daine wondered what that kind of love felt like. The twins were sleeping now, their limbs scattered at bizarre angles as they had fought to be comfortable. The odd mixture of sweetness and silliness made her smile. She tucked them carefully under a soft blanket and kissed their foreheads tenderly before blowing out the candles.

Numair wasn't in the main room when she went downstairs, so she built up the fire and tidied away the children's toys, then made herself comfortable in one of the wide, soft chairs which was so overstuffed with wool that cats had been known to disappear entirely in its cushions. The fire made her damp clothes steam, and she watched the flames with a sleepy happiness which she had not felt in so long that it seemed unbearably precious. Numair came in without her noticing, and she jumped when he sat on the wide arm of the chair. For a moment sheer panic washed over her, as she remembered the book she had left in her daughter's room. Her husband shook her head at the expression and spoke softly.

"We read the first chapter together, and then she had a fairy story. She has a lot of questions, but she says she'll wait and ask you in her lesson tomorrow so she can 'learn proper'." He recited the last part with a rueful grin, and added, "Did you teach her that grammatical travesty?"

"Only to torment you." Daine replied, smiling with open relief. It was the best thing that could have happened. She pulled him down into the seat with her and curled up against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad she took it well."

"She's a sensible girl. She's determined to work hard."

"Well, that's not surprising. She's been pestering us to teach her magic since before she could even say the word. And she wants to make you proud."

He looked down at her, surprised. "I am proud of her."

"She knows you're proud because you're her da, but now she's growing up that's not enough. She wants you to be proud of the things she does, too." Daine told him, and explained what Sarralyn had said about her father and the twins a few weeks before. Numair listened in silence, and nodded his head slowly when Daine had finished.

"Perhaps I don't spend enough time with her." He looked pensive for a moment, and then smiled and shook his head. "Well, I can fix that in the morning."

"Don't be too obvious, or she'll know I gossiped!" Daine mimed a look of horror, and then laughed when Numair affected a look of pure innocence. It was utterly unconvincing, and she giggled when he started laughing, too.

"It's wonderful to hear you laugh, sweet." He said, when they were both a little calmer. The girl nodded. As pleased as he sounded, he couldn't possibly know how much of a relief it was to her, to be able to laugh again. She hadn't thought she would ever laugh again. She sighed happily and rested her head against his shoulder, wondering when the numbness had gone away. She couldn't remember a single moment when it had stopped; she had been far too busy thinking of other things to…

"Being busy helps." She murmured, half to herself. "If I have to work out problems then I don't think I have enough time to be sad."

"It makes sense. When you first left Galla you were so busy with the riders and your lessons that you didn't even talk about it. I mean, you snapped at me a few times." Numair shrugged when she glanced at him. "I assumed it was just part of your wonderful personality until I found out the truth."

"I couldn't do anything else. What could I have done – cried my eyes out in the mountains until I froze to death?"

"Some people would have."

"But the same thing doesn't make sense now. I'm not in danger or starving. I don't have any… any instinct telling me to push all of the pain away until I'm safe and warm."

"Well then, let's form a strategy." Numair tugged at his nose thoughtfully. "We fly out to the mountains and you can shapeshift back in the middle of bandit country, make your way home, and yell at me."

She swatted at him, laughing, and shook her head. "I have three children who are far more terrifying than the bandits, Numair. Even camping out in the woods with them would be an uphill battle."

"Let's do that then." He said glibly, and then looked amused at the thought. "It could be fun. Now that you're strong again we can protect them; the boys will love it and Sarralyn will learn far more out there than she will gossiping with the tabby cats."

Daine opened her mouth to argue, and then closed it slowly as the idea focused in her mind. The thought of green leaves and sweet, earthen trails made her warming heart ache, and since she had healed her feet had itched to walk more than a few corridors.

"Yes." She said, and her voice was wistful. "I'd like that."

He smiled and pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "Would you really, Daine? I'll start packing right now if you want."

"No, don't." She stopped him before he got too excited, and then shook her head at his scolded expression. "I don't mean I don't want to go. But we can pack tomorrow, can't we? The children can help." She cuddled closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "So you don't have to move an inch."

He kissed the top of her head and they watched the fire slowly burning down from bright flames into warm red embers. Whatever they spoke about didn't mean much; they both enjoyed the soft, flickering warmth and the closeness of each other, and although they had made plans for the next day they were both content to let their minds empty and drift in the sleepy silence.

"I've missed this." Daine whispered, and turned in her husband's arms so she could kiss him. He stopped her with a gentle hand on her cheek, and then he smiled and ran his fingers through her hair.

"Do you love me tonight, Daine?"

"I never stopped." She said in a hesitant voice, "But tonight I can feel it."

"Then let's not waste it." He whispered, and drew her closer to kiss her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I've finished 'Where do we Start' I'm able to focus on this story a lot more. So expect updates... and nag me if I don't deliver!

The Black Mage and the Wildmage of Tortall could never officially leave the capital lands without a royal decree. Individually, both of the mages wielded enough power that their movements through the liege holdings were watched as carefully as any other weapon. A lord might feel threatened by a ballista or a consignment of the riders setting up camp on his lands unannounced; an arch mage was a thousand times more dangerous than that. While every storyteller in the realm knew that two of the most powerful mages in the kingdom were married, very few saw their companionship as anything other than a deadly alliegance. Most of the nobles paid their couriers handsomely to bring sketches and descriptions of the king's trusted circle, knowing that if they saw those people then they should act as though the king himself was among them. Daine and Numair found themselves being recognised by strangers in the street during the Scanran War, and by the time it ended they had resigned themselves to being notorious.

Officially, then, they would not leave their home in the foothills beyond the Royal Forest, nor would they travel onwards towards the heather plains in the south west. Officially, they would be staying in the tower, where the nearby villagers would see smoke rising from the chimney and hear the children shrieking as they played in the garden each day. Unofficially, the pigs were quite happy to practice their singing, and the spell which made the harmless smoke illusion took less than an hour for Numair to perfect.

They wore sturdy travelling clothes, which looked ragged enough to pass for working clothes if anyone saw them. Daine kept the strong clothes for herself and the children so that they could play with the animals without costing a fortune in threads. It was more of a challenge to find something rough for Numair - the man was unerringly vain about his clothing at court - but once Daine threatened to let the cats tear up his favourite riding gear he relented and dug out some old travelling gear from a chest in the attic.

"I haven't seen that since Dunlath." Daine remarked, picking up an old tunic in some amazement. "Don't tell me you kept that horrible pink dress, too?"

"I didn't think it would fit me."

"That's a shame. It's more your colour than mine." She smirked when he pulled a face and then caught sight of something else in the chest. Her voice was a little quieter when she asked, "Numair, is this stuff all from when we were in Dunlath?"

He nodded, and then looked at where she was looking. Sighing, he picked up the branch and held it out to her. The wood was still a shining, healthy brown even after years of being locked in the dark. "He's still alive." The mage said softly, "I don't know if he feels, or thinks, or knows what he's become, but I felt like I owed it to him to keep watch. When he dies, I don't know if anyone else will remember that he was ever anything except a tree."

Daine took the branch and held it with squeamish fingers. "What part of him is…"

"Oh, it's not a part. The spell doesn't work that way. His feet aren't roots and his fingers aren't twigs, he just became a tree." Numair took the branch back and closed the chest back over it, snapping the padlock firmly closed. "He might outlive us all."

"You said you… you don't know if he can think?" Daine shook her head, looking a little giddy. "Can you imagine being trapped like that for hundreds of years?"

Numair smiled crookedly and caught her hand. "Don't try to make me pity him, magelet. He tried to kill you. What would you have done if he'd attacked Sarralyn?"

She winced and pulled her hand away, wiping some of the dust off the chest. "Still, it's an interesting problem, isn't it?" Seeing that the man wasn't following, she waved her hand vaguely and tried to explain.

"That's an old spell, and I'm fair certain mages were running around using it long before you did. You don't know if the trees can think. That means none of those old mages ever wrote one of their books about it. So maybe they never found out, either. And maybe there's just hundreds of trees out there which used to be people, people from years and years ago. If they can still think they must be fair crazed with it by now, or else they must be miserable. It seems like something worth knowing."

Numair looked a little stunned, and then shook his head dazedly. "You're right. No-one's ever asked that."

Daine stood up and started shooing the cats down from the dusty space. "I know we're going camping in the woods, but if you happened to bring some of your boring mage books it'd be an interesting puzzle for you. I figure you must be getting bored running around after me and the litter all day."

He stood up and caught her arms, kissing her swiftly and then grinning. "Thank you, sweetling."

"Honestly! You make it sound like I'm giving you permission! You would have done something peculiar anyway." She stuck her tongue out at him. He shook his head.

"Thank you for the idea. The only thing I ever think about when I see that branch is how much I'd love to throw it into the fire." He shrugged and then his smile returned. "I'll have to work out how to recognise transmogrified arboreal entities before we get too far, otherwise…"

"Scat!" She gave him a push towards the ladder and pulled a face. He grinned and left.

Rounding up the children was the easiest part of the journey. The twins were already playing outside, so they simply herded them in the direction of the trail path until their little legs grew tired, and then they scooped them up. Daine had fashioned a sling across her back where one of the boys yawned and amused himself with the way the arrow fletchings tickled his nose, while Numair hefted the other twin over one shoulder like a bag of potatoes. They left most of the animals behind at the tower, and since they had decided to travel on foot Daine had already bid the horses goodbye. Before the tower was entirely out of sight, she turned and caught her daughter's hand.

"Say goodbye to Cloud." She murmured, not wanting to wake up Rikash. The girl opened her mouth, and then giggled when Daine pressed her hand over it. "Do you think she'll hear your voice from here? Use your magic."

The girl screwed up her eyes tight and strained so hard her face went red. After a long time, she breathed out in a rush and shook her head, looking dejected.

"Don't worry." Daine kissed the girl tenderly and then knelt down so they were at the same level. "It took me ages, but one day it'll just feel right. Maybe when we get back, she'll hear you shouting hello long before she can hear me!"

They caught up with the others, and spent the rest of the day walking at an easy pace up the first of the hills into the higher counties. To the people walking past they looked the same as any other travelling family crossing the countryside to look for work when the harvest arrived. They joined the King's Road for a few miles and were welcomed into the crowds of other people who had taken advantage of the balmy weather to travel.

On the first night they camped with three other families, leaving the children to play with each other while they swapped stories with the adults. They were mostly field hands, but there was also a family of trappers who were looking for a good place to set up their winter camp. While the farmhands only had very crude weapons, the trappers were well armed. They had to win their territory from bandits, and if they didn't know how to fight then they wouldn't last through the snows. Snowcat pelts and other trapper currency were becoming more rare, since bandits had been steadily creeping into the forests since the Scanran War had ended. There had been too many battles and soldiers in their own lands; the relatively peaceful Tortallan forests were worth fighting a few trappers and immortals over.

The mages had adopted the name of Draper as part of their disguise, and so their story had written itself. They were cloth merchants who had inherited a little money when their uncle had passed away. They had sold all of their stock and were looking for a new place to settle where they could build up a better business than their small village had needed.

"You don't look like drapers." Someone pointed out, and a few people laughed. Numair smiled easily and brushed a stray thread from the shoulder of his jerkin.

"I wouldn't make a profit if I wore all my wares, would I?"

The laughter grew louder, and then rose when one of the children barreled across the clearing and launched himself into the draper's arms. Numair, taken by surprise, fell backwards into the grass. Seizing the boy, he tickled him until he squealed and then sat up.

"Well, it looks like it's bedtime." The man mimed resignation and stood up, picking the boy up by the legs and dangling him upside down until he crowed with laughter. "Let's track down the other little monster, shall we? I'll ward the camp while I'm up."

"You're a mage?" The trapper father looked up with interest. Numair shrugged and flipped his son the right way round.

"I can cast a shield, at least. My lady teases me that I can't even light a candle properly." He nodded at Daine, who pulled a face at him and turned back to Sarralyn.

The little girl had been warned not to mention magic to anyone, but had hidden one of Daine's notebooks inside a fairy tale pamphlet and was whispering questions to her mother. As the sky grew darker the little girl had crawled closer to the circle of firelight, and in the twilight her eyes started flicking widely from side to side.

"It's okay." Daine murmured, kissing the girl's temple. "There's nothing out there. You know there isn't."

The child frowned and pressed her fingertips to her forehead, rubbing the skin fretfully. "I can't hear any of the buzzing, but I couldn't hear it before, either. Mama…" She hesitated and then looked up with her lip trembling. "Can I sleep with you and da tonight?"

"Are you one of the babies, now?" The woman teased her, but cuddled her closer. Of course Sarralyn was scared - she had never spent much time on the trail before, and it was her first time sleeping outside since the spidren attack. Daine was sure the twins would be fretful too, but they had run around so much while they were building the camp that they would have fallen asleep on a bowstring. They were snoring away long before the sun had set. Daine moved the rest of the cluster of bedrolls closer together before she tucked the girl in.

"Da's warding the camp." She murmured as she pulled the blankets up. "You know nothing will get through that."

"What if something's already in with us?" The girl mumbled back, fighting to keep her eyes open. Daine pretended to think about it.

"Well, then I have my bow, and if I miss then your da will talk at it until it gets bored and falls asleep."

Sarralyn thought about this with a serious expression, and then nodded slowly. Her eyes drooped closed, and she was breathing deeply in a few minutes. Daine checked on the twins and then curled up in her own bedroll, reaching out to rest her hand on her daughter's arm. She watched the firelight flickering softly over the child's face, still baby-round but growing more shapely now, and stroked her arm gently.

"Is she alright?" Numair asked, sitting down beside his wife. Daine sat up and smiled wanly.

"She's just a bit nervous. I said she could sleep with us tonight."

"She hasn't done that in a while." The man reached across and gently stroked the child's hair away from her closed eyes. Daine shook her head.

"I know. I didn't realise how long it's been. While I've been so taken up with the twins she's been busy growing up." Her mood shifted, and she planted a finger into the man's shoulder. "You'd better be planning on taking those boots off before you climb into bed with me, mister mage."

"Ah, I forgot that only animals are allowed to traipse mud through our blankets." He quipped.

"You are an animal."

"Coming from you, that's a wonderful compliment." The man tweaked her nose playfully and started unlacing his boots. "Where is tonight's menagerie, magelet?"

"Hunting. Foraging. Sleeping." She looked around into the darkness and shrugged. "I thought it best to keep them away while people are looking. I mean, we even left Kit behind so no-one would recognise us. I figure it'll take more than a few wards for people to work out who you are, but if a wolf pack comes calling it'd be harder to laugh off."

"I make a point never to laugh at wolves." He said solemnly, and then pointed to his bare feet with a pitiful expression. Daine laughed and pulled him into the blankets.

"Gods, your feet are cold!" She whispered, shrinking away with a mock shudder. He tangled them in her own feet unrepentantly.

"They were nice and warm in my muddy boots."

"You probably spelled them to make them warm. Since when did you get so soft?"

"Since when did you care about a little mud?"

"Good point." She grinned and cuddled up to him. "I'll stop caring about it right this second. After a few weeks out here we'll have to chip through layers of it to tell which twin is which."

"Mama…" The soft voice made them both look around at Sarralyn's sleepy face. "You're being loud."

"Sorry, sleepyhead." Daine nuzzled her nose against the girl's and laughed when the girl giggled and pulled away. "I guess it's bedtime for everyone."

"It has to be all of eight o clock." Numair agreed in a player's whisper. Daine pulled a face at him which he ignored as he kissed their daughter goodnight. She smiled at him and then cuddled back down into her blankets.

When the girl was asleep Numair beckoned Daine back into his arms and held her, gently stroking the tangled curls of her hair which fell across her shoulder. Neither of them were sleepy, but there was a soft serenity in the silent clearing that made everything feel slow and tender. Daine caught the man's other hand and wove her fingers in and out of his.

"Don't ask me how I am." She murmured. "I know you want to, but if I don't think about it then I feel better."

"Alright." He said easily, and kissed her temple. "I'm going to read for a bit. It won't disturb you, will it?"

She shook her head and smiled when he pulled a large hardcovered book out of his bag. When she was younger she had always secretly believed that Numair's casual strength was down to the number of heavy books he always seemed to carry, and not down to their difficult travels together. He sat in a tailor seat and cast a soft mage light over the open pages. Daine yawned and pillowed her head on his knee.

"I can't promise you won't get a papercut lying there." He teased her. She mocked a sigh.

"I'm used to sharing you with your books. We have a truce."

"Care to share it with me?"

"You, my love, are completely irrelevant." She yawned again and closed her eyes. When she was asleep, Numair dimmed the mage light a little further and started to read about trees. He was still reading when the sun started to rise.

##


End file.
